A $2 Million Car, A Pelican And A Lagoon

Here is a sentence with so many strange and wonderful parts in it that it's best just to let it speak for itself:

A Lufkin man drove his $2 million Bugatti sportscar into a Galveston-area lagoon after being distracted by a pelican.

First, who spends $2 million on a car? And second, of all the places you'd expect such a person to be from, Lufkin would be right behind oh, say, La Porte. Third, you've got the whole aspect of the vengeful, possibly jealous, pelican. It's pretty much the signature bird of the island, of course, so it's symbolically lots better than if the driver had been distracted by a grackle shitting on his precious windshield.

The driver, who was uninjured but no doubt very pissed, refused to give his name (or probably much else information besides "Goddamn bird"), but the Galveston County Daily News was able to piece together the story.

The man, who was on the island looking for real estate that we'll guessing he will now never buy, was driving along the frontage road of I-45 just south of the levee near Omega Bay in La Marque.

He was driving a Bugatti Veyron, a verylimited-edition car that has 16 cylinders, four turbo-chargers (but only two seats!! Come on!), a car that can do more than 250 mph when it's not being attacked by pelicans.

The driver told police the bird distracted him, and he "dropped his cell phone" (good move using a cell phone; you don't want to be paying close attention when you're driving a $2 million car), went across a patch of dirt and into about two feet of a saltwater lagoon.

We're thinking of the line in Risky Business, as the Porsche repairman looks at the recently submerged Dad's car Tom Cruise is desperate to get fixed: "Who's the U-Boat captain?"

Saddest line ever written about the semi-demise of a $2 million car:

The Veyron's powerful engine gurgled like an outboard motor for about 15 minutes before it died.

As Jimmy Webb once almost wrote: "Galveston, oh Galveston -- I can see your seabirds flying / While I steer the car I'm driving / Into a lagoon / And I curse you, Galveston."